Susannah Straughan

Fate and Ferrer slam the door on Rafa

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgBTk3QH08s&w=640&h=390] There may be tears on Rod Laver Arena tomorrow if drama queen Vera Zvonareva loses her Australian Open semi-final against Kim Clijsters. But today I was the one weeping into my coffee as Rafael Nadal lost his battle with… Continue Reading →

2011/01/26

Wet t-shirts, dry humour and a phantom pregnancy

“Nadal looks like he’s wrapped in red cling film” quipped Andrew Cotter, the BBC’s latest smarmy recruit to the commentary box at the 2011 Australian Open. Cotter was referring (yet again), to the prodigious amounts of sweat pouring off the… Continue Reading →

2011/01/22

Biutiful

Life is far from beautiful in the world of Alejandro González Iñárritu: it’s a bitch. Take a car crash or a random shooting; mix it with a lot of cruelty, criminality and angst; then divide into multiple intersecting storylines and… Continue Reading →

2011/01/18

Susannah York 1939-2011

Quintessential English rose or frustrated wild child? Susannah York, who died on Saturday aged 72, might have characterised herself as the latter, according to an interview with The Guardian in 2007. Her son, actor Orlando Wells, used the term “maverick”… Continue Reading →

2011/01/16

The Navigator

The Barbican continues its mission to make Sunday a day of silence, with a showing of Buster Keaton’s 1924 comedy, The Navigator. This film was Keaton’s biggest box-office success, but I suspect most of us in the audience weren’t that… Continue Reading →

2011/01/12

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

There’s something about George Lazenby’s chin dimple that reawakens my Kirk Douglas obsession. “This never happened to the other guy” quips 007 at the end of the pre-credits sequence of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In case any viewers had… Continue Reading →

2011/01/09

The Long Hot Summer

I watched The Long Hot Summer hoping — like Joanne Woodward — to get lost in Paul Newman’s dazzling blue eyes. Sadly, Orson Welles’s prosthetic nose proves to be the major distraction in this would-be steamy melodrama filled with mindless… Continue Reading →

2011/01/08

Brotherhood

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEwIJITP1Sc&fs=1&hl=en_GB] Why do college fraternities give themselves those fancy Greek names? In Animal House John Belushi’s Bluto was part of the confederacy of toga-wearing dunces known as Delta Tau Chi. In Will Canon’s feature debut, Brotherhood, the trail of stolen… Continue Reading →

2011/01/02

The Undercover War

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrcG0ddtujE&fs=1&hl=en_GB] “Welcome to the empire of the buried-alive!” As young François (Grégoire Leprince Ringuet) goes into hiding during the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg, he leaves behind a world of fear and mistrust and enters something even worse. The French title… Continue Reading →

2010/12/30

Flights of Fancy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WYKhwiiaIA&fs=1&hl=en_GB] It seems you can’t put on a costume drama these days unless you have a septuagenarian Dame in your cast. A bird in the airing cupboard; a monkey at the breakfast table; and a trainee footman getting frisky with… Continue Reading →

2010/12/27

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